Speaking following the release of the Home Affairs Select Committee report on the IPPC, Shadow home secretary Yvette Cooper said: "The Home Affairs Select Committee is right that the IPCC is not strong enough to tackle the problem when policing goes wrong.

Shadow Home Secretary Yvette Cooper. Credit: Press Assocation

"That is why I called for radical reform of police accountability last year, including replacing the IPCC with a new Police Standards Authority.

"For the public to have confidence in the high standards of British policing, they also need to know that there will be swift, robust action when policing goes wrong.

"Yet this report highlights a series of problems with the operations, powers, resources and support for victims within the current IPCC that the Home Secretary has not addressed."

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The IPCC should have a statutory power to force implementation of its findings and in the most serious cases it should instigate a "year on review" to ensure that its recommendations have been properly carried out, the committee said.

Failure to do so would result in an investigation by Her Majesty's Inspectorate of Constabulary and the Police and Crime Commissioner.

The report said the IPCC lacks the resources necessary to "get to the truth" - it has a smaller budget than the Professional Standards Department of the Met Police.

IPCC investigators should be able to take immediate control of a potential crime scene during the crucial "golden hours" and early days of an investigation into deaths and serious injury involving police officers, the committee recommended.

Following a scathing report on the IPCC from the Home Affairs Select Committee, committee chairman Keith Vaz says the police watchdog leaves the public "frustrated and faithless":

When public trust in the police is tested by complaints of negligence, misconduct and corruption, a strong watchdog is vital to get to the truth - but the IPCC leaves the public frustrated and faithless.

Nearly a quarter of officers were subject to a complaint last year. Many were trivial, but some were extremely serious, involving deaths in custody or corruption - it is an insult to all concerned to do no more than scratch the surface of these alleged abuses.

The IPCC investigated just a handful and often arrived at the scene late, when the trail had gone cold. The Commission is on the brink of letting grave misconduct go uninvestigated.

The IPCC (The Independent Police Complaints Commission). which was established in 2004 and is chaired by Dame Anne Owers, investigates the most serious complaints against the police, as well as the Serious Organised Crime Agency, Her Majesty's Revenue and Customs and the UK Border Agency.

A total of 31,771 officers were subject to a complaint during 2011/2012 and when appeals were made against the way forces handled a complaint, the IPCC found that the police had been wrong in one in three cases.

The police watchdog is "woefully under-equipped and hamstrung" and does not have the power or resources to get to the truth, a scathing report by an influential group of MPs has said.

The IPCC is "woefully under-equipped and hamstrung," according to the Home Affairs Select Committee. Credit: IPCC

The Independent Police Complaints Commission (IPCC), which is currently investigating the Hillsborough Disaster in the UK's biggest ever inquiry into police misconduct, should be given a statutory power to require police forces to implement its findings, the Home Affairs Select Committee has said.

And more cases should be investigated independently by the IPCC instead of being referred back to the original police force on a "complaints roundabout", the committee added.